What are you up to tonight? Wanna link?
“Sorry,” I mumbled to Wes, quickly texting Maisy that I was seeing a concert at the Lincoln Center, but we should definitely catch up soon.
I didn’t have to rudely text Maisy back while Wes was talking to me. It wasn’t like the text would even go through until we were at the next station. But I sought escape.
“Thank you,” I said finally. My skin was itchy and far too warm. “I—I’m not good at taking compliments.”
“That has been made apparent.” His smile was generous and teasing.
“I am who I am,” I said with a shrug, and my lips curved into a smile.
Wes glanced at my lips as they moved, and I squirmed under his watch. His own mouth opened and closed. After a beat, he changed the subject. “Do you listen to any Belle and Sebastian?”
I shook my head.
“That shocks me,” he said as we rolled into First Avenue. “But it also delights me to think of you hearing them with virgin ears. I’ll send you some songs to plug into your little Zoomer music apps.If You’re Feeling Sinisterneeds to be your first listen.”
“Zoomer music apps,” I laughed. Something about the way Wes was assigning me music like homework elicited another inappropriate response from my body.
OnlyIwould get turned on by that.
“Or I have them on vinyl, if you want to listen to music how it was made to be listened to,” Wes added.
Underneath his confident facade, I saw the briefest flash of uncertainty in his eyes. Had he just invited me over to listen to records?
We both stared at each other for three long beats. “Do you have a DVD player too?”
Wes’s grin didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Of course.”
We engaged in our lighthearted, generational sparring match all the way until Sixth Avenue, where we hopped off to transfer to the 1 train.
When we got to Lincoln Center, we still hadn’t mentioned The Circle. We talked about music and books and moody teenage angst, poking fun at each other’s quirks in a way I’d begun to crave when we were apart. We laughed all the way through the line and into the auditorium, the rest of the world fading away.
It was only when the lights dimmed and the performers took the stage that Wes and I finally fell silent.
My chest was buzzing with warm energy. I glanced at Wes’s thigh, inches from mine. His beautiful face had finally turned away from me toward the stage.
The first orchestral piece was the strangest performance I’d ever heard, and I quickly remembered Wes had called the orchestraexperimental.
Instead of gliding their bows across the strings to create smooth sound, the performers intentionally ground the bow hairs down against the strings to produce a haunting cacophony of slow, harmonized discomfort.
It was both grating and mesmerizing. I couldn’t wait for it to end, and I didn’t want it to stop.
Wes and I exchanged a look when the piece ended and before the next began. “Art?” he asked.
I pretended to weigh the question, head cocking slightly to the right and then the left. Finally, I nodded. “Art.”
The next piece was a slow build, and thankfully, they were playing the instruments the way God had intended. No more sickening crunch of strings.
I kept waiting for the slow build to break, for the haunting melody to shift into a sweeping, full-orchestra climax. We’d already been musically edged for fifteen minutes by the time I started to drift into the sound, my emotions melding with the orchestral story. It wasn’t unlike those trance states Jayne and Archer were so interested in.
After another five minutes, I glanced at Wes’s tattooed hand on his thigh. I imagined how it would feel onmythigh instead. Warm, calloused, heavy. Wes glanced at me.
My throat bobbed. I quickly returned my focus to the stage.
Maybe this orchestra was trying to torture us, drive us to madness. Enough foreplay; I wanted the action.
Suddenly, the lights went out. The music halted in an instant. The crowd gasped.
